Our Work

The waiting game

Since March 2020 we have had a lot of feedback from the public telling us about delays, difficulties and changes in NHS and social care services, due to the Covid-19 pandemic affecting how these services were run. Healthwatch Kirklees and Healthwatch Calderdale worked collaboratively during 2021 to collect the experiences of people living in Calderdale and Kirklees during the Covid-19 pandemic who had experienced delays to health and social care for non-Covid related conditions since March 2020.
NHS Report Delivery Plan For Tackling The Covid-19 Backlog

Here at Healthwatch Calderdale, we have recently completed our latest work into people’s experiences of accessing medication.

This project was prompted by our initial engagement into people’s experiences of Covid-19, with over 200 people telling us they had some challenges accessing medication.
We have further explored 3 areas:

• Changes to medication;
• Medication reviews;
• Support of others to obtain medication.

To gather a full understanding of the experience of health and care services during the Covid-19 outbreak, over a period over of 12 weeks (end of May to end of August 2020) Healthwatch Calderdale and partners used a variety of different engagement approaches and tools including a survey and virtual focus groups to talk to people living and working in Calderdale.